General Court of Pleas – 15 April 1736 (known in lower court as Gulliver v Hack)

Participants

Burges (Burgess), Frances, widow

Gulliver, Lemuel (lessee of Frances Burges)

Hack, John

Paris, Ferdinando John, solicitor (appears for John Hack)

Tox, David

Description

Land (“upon an Ejectment,” according the the Privy Council register)

Disposition

Sent back to General Court of Pleas for further factual determination and jury trial if necessary

Notes

Participant Tox is named in the printed case as David Fox.

The printed case reveals that slaves as well as land are part of the property in dispute.

The summary of the Committee report in the APC has Frances Burges as lessee, but the Privy Council register has her properly as the lessor. Lemuel Gulliver may be a real person, but we may doubt the reality of the lease to him. On this and on the action of ejectment involved here, see Additional Research.

References in Smith, Appeals to the Privy Council from the American Plantations

Table of Cases (Burgess v Hack)

DOCUMENTATION

Printed Cases

Appellant’s case

Case of the appellant (Lemuel Gulliver on the demise of Frances Burgess)

Counsel

[Signed] D. Ryder; J. Browne

Note

The docket title is Frances Burgess, widow vs. John Hack, Gent. Title on the printed case is Lemuel Gulliver, on the demise of Frances Burgess – plaintiff and appellant; John Hack – respondent.

Library

British Library: (Hardwicke Papers) Additional Manuscripts 36216 f.103–104 (Includes manuscript notes and an additional record in the appeal, f.105, which is printed and is endorsed: “A copy of the additional record in the appeal which was lately between Frances Burges, widow, plaintiff and appellant and John Hack, gent., defendant and respondent which cause is now between Jesse Ball, and Frances his wife – appellant and John Hack – respondent.”)

A photocopy of “a copy of the record, transmitted on the appeal of Frances Burges, widow, plaintiff below, and appellant John Hack, gent., defendant below and respondent [Williamsburgh: s.n., 1737]” is in the Virginia Historical Society. The copy supposedly in the New York Public Library (formerly the Lenox Library), as noted in Clayton-Torrence, Trial Bibliography of Colonial Virginia, 1:121, sec. 139, could not be verified. At least one copy is known to be in private hands. See also the entry in Barton, Virginia Colonial Decisions, 2:B195–201.